Nice little variety of news items today. Nothing super exciting, and no there are no wedding photos yet, but I haven’t done a news post in a while so it seemed like I should.
Sushant Singh Rajput Bring Despair Where Ere He Goes
Am I the only one who has noticed this pattern? Kadarnath got caught up in money disputes with the producers and now has the STUPID NOT WORTH DISCUSSING HOW CAN INDIA BE SO MESSED UP “love jihad” thing. The astronaut movie ran out of money and ended up not even happening. His Fault in Our Stars remake is in trouble because of the #MeToo allegations against the director. And now I am learning that Shraddha Kapoor got Dengue just as she was about to start working with him. Stay away from Sushant! He is the Film Killer!!!!
(Cute song, cute guy, TOXIC!)
Bharat Script Changes
This is interesting. Salman and the Bharat team are promoting a story that first, they showed the final script to the makers of the Korean original and got their support for it, and second that the script was changed in order to be more “emotional” and have a stronger role for the heroine. (story here)
I am fascinated that there is this effort to increase, not decrease, the Korean connection. That they think the audience will respond to that, will say “oh good, they are respecting the original filmmakers and the filmmakers are giving their okay to it”. Versus the usually police of just wildly stealing stories and not worrying about giving credit. I wonder what the presumed advantage is? Credit from the tastemaker types who might have seen the original? Or is this part of an effort towards reaching the larger Asian market?
The adding emotion part of the story, that’s like Hindi Film Marketing 101, the audience will always turn out for emotion. I’m sure they actually did add emotions to it, but they really want to be sure we know that too. It’s the leak of a stronger heroine role that I find really interesting. Is this a reflection of some of the responses to Salman’s last few films? Sultan and Tiger Zinda Hai both benefited from a stronger heroine, and Race 3 suffered without it. Whether or not Kat ends up having a major role in Bharat, it seems advantageous to tell people she will. The audience doesn’t want Salman by himself any more, they want the promise of a strong co-lead.
Kunal Kapoor to Play a Good Muslim in Panipat
Well, this is nice! On several levels. Kunal Kapoor is Shashi’s son, had a tiny career as a young man and then went away. He came back to film off and on, most recently playing Amy Jackson’s father in Singh is Bling which was so random, I am assuming he just did it for the European vacation (all his scenes were shot in Europe I think). Nice that he is going to be onscreen again, nice to have this little blast from the past.
But what is really nice is that he will be playing a Muslim Nawab ALLY to Arjun’s Maharashtrian Hindu hero against the Afghanis. Because yes, that’s how history was, people from all over India of every religion allied together to fight. Religion was not what defined armies. So, YAAAAY!!!! This film will have a “Good Muslim” character!!!! Still won’t have any Muslim actors, but oh well, baby steps. And I look forward to it being sued for something as MADE UP STUPID AND HATEFUL as “love jihad” by some idiotic opportunistic and evil political group.
(Kunal and Shashi)
dontcallitbollywood 
I think they’re trying to give Bharat more credibility as a movie. They’ve seen Salman’s last two big Eid releases fail. They’ve seen the Thugs disaster that was accused of copying POTC and turning Katrina into an item girl. One way is to distance themselves from the ‘typical masala crap’ vibe by emphasizing the Korean connection and that the original creators approve of the remake. Another is to give respectability to the female lead Katrina by ‘increasing her role’ in contrast to what happened to her in Thugs.
They’re trying to set up the publicity of this movie differently from all the last few big holiday releases because they don’t want the same fate.
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That makes complete sense. Just talking about “the script” like it’s a real thing, instead of something that strings together a bunch of action scenes is a step up from Race 3.
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Talking about the script as if it’s a real life. Omg, hahahahaa, that was hilarious.
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LOL Be careful, some indian moviemakers are very superstitious and poor Sushant will not be able to find work after your post 😉
And how this space movie is going? I’m so confused. I thought they are doing it, when Maddy was in US last year, but now he announced this other space movie, so maybe he was working on this one there?
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From what I can understand, SSR’s space movie just ran out of money and isn’t happening. I think it is different from the Maddy space movie, but I’m not sure. It was the one titled Chanda Mama Door Ke or something like that.
At this point I am getting superstitious about Sushant! It might be better for The World if no one ever tries to hire him again.
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I have such mixed feelings about this SSR toxicity. I think he’s arrogant and sketchy off-screen, but I really like his performances (except for Dhoni…decent performance just boring). I’m one of the handful of people that liked Raabta and also really enjoyed most of his other films. That song makes me even more excited for Kedarnath. The chemistry looks good with Sara and he does have a particular kind of cocky sexiness that really works for him on-screen. It worries me that he is outdancing Sara in the song though…I wonder what her training is…was Amrita a decent dancer?…we know Saif isn’t. She’s still really pretty in a really old-fashioned classic way. Reminds me of a younger Vidya Balan in that sense…has an older more mature presence but not in a bad way.
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Good call. I was thinking a cross btwn Vidya and Karisma.
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I am also one of the handful of people who liked Raabta! And I liked Dhoni too. And Byomkesh Bakshy! But I am beginning to think SSR is just plain bad luck within himself. Every film he is in flops, or doesn’t even release. Well, except for Dhoni.
I don’t think Amrita was a decent dancer. Very good at vamping, not so much with the classical movements and all that. But Sara has time, she can learn as she works. So long as the choreographers are willing to work with her and help her.
On Thu, Nov 15, 2018 at 10:17 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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But Sushant is such a graceful elegant dancer, nimble with such a light touch! Just check out his moves in the kedernath song video you posted, he makes it look so darn easy, conservation of energy yet such fluidity, the Fred Astaire of Bollywood. The man with the giraffe neck… I hope we get to see him more often.
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I like him onscreen, but it is so strange that every movie for the past 2 years has had some horrible thing happen to it!
On Thu, Nov 15, 2018 at 10:26 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Last time, I just chalked it up to his character in Raabta but Sushant really reminds me of Shahrukh again! There’s something about him where he has the same young Shahrukh vibe. This song especially reminds me of Yeh Ladka Hai Allah.
I really like Sara Ali Khan as well. I don’t know about Jhanvi Kapoor but I feel like Sara’s gonna end up lasting a long time in the industry.
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I like Sara too, it will be really interesting to see how she does on Koffee tomorrow. Her debut is certainly better, having two very different movies release back to back will lock her in to the industry right from the start instead of Jhanvi throwing it all into one basket.
And now I have to watch the song with fresh eyes! SSR and SRK have such different bodies, but the last time you pointed out the similarity I went back and watched it again and you were absolutely right.
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Yeah, I think people just knew Dhadak came out and then forgot about Jhanvi. Plus it didn’t help that it was a remake of a movie that was really popular.
I feel like even if Kedarnath doesn’t do well, Simmba will be big enough that people will know Sara’s name.
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